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Jeffree Starr Cosmetics

There’s been a huge revival of information on Jeffree Starr, remember him? That guy from myspace that now makes makeup? Yeah, him. Videos have resurfaced of him being extremely rude to fans, telling them to kill themselves, actually hitting a fan, stealing art, and being extremely racist.

Now, I never supported Jeffree Starr with my money, (thank god) but I was a fan of his videos, he seemed to be a Cinderella-story type person who gets paid to be himself and who wasn’t afraid to tell the truth about what he thought about famous makeup brands. However, my views of him has since changed since this stuff surfaced.

I have heard that Jeffree has called people the N-word, did a skit with another white person (who was straight up pretending to be a “ghetto” black woman) and said he splashed battery acid on a black girl’s face to lighten her skin tone, among other things. After actually watching the video, I was shocked. Not only does the video use black stereotypes for comedy, but it treats violence against us as comedy as well! How does someone say something as gruesome as that and try and pass it off as something funny?! I know his whole thing was dark humor or whatever, but there is a line between dark comedy and being offensive. And it’s a pretty easy line to see. Saying a black girl couldn’t wear MAC foundation because it doesn’t match her skin tone, and then proceeding to say he threw acid in her face as a joke is a clear violation of that line. It’s not “edgy”, it’s racist. Plain and simple.

Not only was I completely disgusted and horrified by his comments, but I was also surprised to find out he actually apologized. But after reading his “apologies”, I realized it seemed that he wasn’t truly sorry for being blatantly racist, he was saying he was sorry if he offended anyone. Which isn’t the same thing. And it also makes me upset to see he still has a lot of people trying to excuse him of his behavior. The fact that his manager is black, or that he uses black models frequently doesn’t mean that he’s not racist. That just means that he’s using the diversity card as a tool to gain a following. It’s the equivalent of saying you have a black friend, so you can’t be racist.

I hope Jeffree Starr has changed like he says he is, but I can’t see that from what I’ve read. I mean, this is the same guy that says he’s humble as heck, and posts pictures of him posing on his expensive cars, bragging about the money in his bank account and then (frequently) using that to say he’s better than others. So believing him doesn’t exactly come naturally.